An hour and a half of hard work saw us, at length, with the cutter keel out, and an anxious scrutiny of her bottom immediately followed.
To our intense satisfaction, we now saw that she had struck, on both occasions, on that portion of her keel which was loaded with lead, two dints in the metal being distinctly visible. One was very trifling; the other was a jagged notch of some five inches in depth, the lead being bent upwards and outwards to starboard in a kind of lip.
Beyond these there were no other injuries even of the slightest kind visible, at least on the port side, and the copper was as unwrinkled as the day it was put on.
Half-an-hour’s work with the hammer put the keel completely to rights again; and whilst I busied myself about this, Bob employed himself in diligently scouring the copper, and would not be satisfied until he had made it almost as bright as gold.
I had very great hopes that we should find the starboard side in an equally undamaged condition; but we determined, whilst we were about it, to make our overhaul complete, so, as soon as dinner was over, we swung the craft, and hove her down again, and soon had the gratification of finding our hopes confirmed.
The copper on the starboard side, of course, received its due share of scouring, for the sake of uniformity; and about an hour before sunset, the tackles were eased up, and the little craft floated on an even keel once more, with her slight damages made good, and everything in as perfect condition (the ordinary wear and tear excepted) as when she came out of the builders hands.
The next day was devoted to a thorough cleansing of the little, craft’s interior, fore and aft, so favourable an opportunity not being likely to offer again until after our return to England, unless, indeed, we really should prove fortunate enough to find our treasure; but she required it even now, so we gave it her, finishing off with a coat of paint.
Before leaving her for the night, we unscrewed all the dead-lights in the deck, took off the skylight-top, and left the companion wide open, so as to ensure a thorough draught through her, this answering the double purpose of drying the paint and removing its objectionable odour.
The following day saw us as busy as ever, getting things back into their places, filling up our water, etcetera; but we did not strike our tents that day, a stronger smell than was quite agreeable still remaining from the new paint.
To fill up our time, therefore, we turned to upon our fire-arms, and gave them a thorough cleaning up, so that they might be in perfect order, and ready for service at a moment’s notice.